


a roadtrip between hello and goodbye

by bayunt



Series: let's see what's on the other side [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I love these two idiots, anakin is a bundle of sunshine when given a normal childhood, padme is indian, this turned out a lot angstier than i planned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-11 16:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11718177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bayunt/pseuds/bayunt
Summary: The day she meets the love of her life for the second time, he almost hits her with a motorcycle. She shouldn't be so happy about this.(Or: Padme is reincarnated, almost dies, and falls in love. In that order.)





	a roadtrip between hello and goodbye

She was born knowing her first life.

 

It’s a common thing to be reborn. According to the surveys and medical reports and Official United States Papers Documenting These Things, all the papers she devoured as a curious six year old, 70.3% is the agreed upon universal figure for reincarnates in the population.

 

But, it’s not, as she discovers, common to remember that life.

 

Padma was only five at the time, curled up on the couch with her parents and two noisy brothers. Her mother had crawled down on the floor next to the three year old boys and was excitedly telling them about the family’s religion.

 

While she leaned into her father’s shoulder and listened to the tales, she idly interjected. “You know, Mama, that story’s not at all like the ones from when I was a grown lady. Back then, we all thought there was the sea first and it gave birth to all creation.”

 

Padma was proud of remembering that phrase, for it was a grown-up one she had struggled to wrap her tongue around until she was eight in her first life. She smiled in pride as her parents mouths twisted in shock.

 

Her mother opened her mouth, and then closed it, looking vaguely sick. Her father didn’t look much better, but he managed to swallow and force out the words, “Darling, are you saying you remember living before this life?”

 

She had nodded, beyond confused. “Doesn’t everyone?”

 

Her mother had shakily stood, staring into her eyes and brushing her smooth black hair behind her ears. “No, sweetheart, we don’t.”

 

 

*

 

 

Her parents had sent everyone to bed after that, but she wasn’t tired. Plus, Padma wanted to hear why remembering made her parents so sad. Were they afraid that she loved her first family more? Or maybe that she wanted to be back on Naboo instead of Earth?

 

That thought made her sad and made her want to run up to them and tell them that just because she remembered being Padme Amidala didn’t mean she didn’t love being Padma Chama. And that her heart had enough room for both of her families.

 

So she crept down the stairs, intent on giving them hugs at least. She doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but before she can fling herself into her mother’s arms, she hears raised voices, which piques her curiosity.

 

Her father is saying, “-she’s always been just fine,” while her mother is crying, “Our poor baby girl!”

 

She goes on. “To remember everything? To miss all the people she loved before, that she’ll never see again? To have double the heartbreak, double the grief, in her heart forever? She knows what it’s like to _die_! How is she going to be fine?”

 

Padma watches through a slit in the staircase as her father wraps his arms around her mother and rests his chin on her shoulder. It’s an intimate gesture, one she feels like she shouldn’t be seeing.

 

“Lily, I know. But I also know that our girl is strong. We’ve taught her to take anything life throws at her, and that goes for anything a previous life’s got packing, too. We just have to believe.”

 

And that’s when Padma realizes she’s the odd one out.

 

 

*

 

 

Her parents try to have a few conversations about it after that, but she suddenly feels wrong talking about it.

 

They tell her she can confide in them, tell them anything she remembers or ask any questions she has about anything she sees.

 

Padma doesn’t.

 

She’d never been afraid of her memories, yet she can’t put them into words for people who obviously don’t understand what it’s like to have another world inside your head. They don’t know that she can speak six different languages that no longer exist or that her fingers can still instinctively form the shape they make when she holds a ~~blaster~~ gun. They don’t know how she fell in love and knew what it was like to lose everything; that she had more responsibility hanging on her fourteen year old shoulders than they’ve ever held.

 

It is like a damn opening. If she starts speaking, it will all spill out, so she doesn’t say anything.

 

After the first few attempts, they stop trying. Eventually, the lack of effort becomes silence on both ends, and then pretending they never knew in the first place.

 

Her parents ignore her little slips, like when they’re all gathered in the den to watch the presidential debates. The first politician is blathering on about their new financial plan, and Padma scoffs and explains the five reasons the proposal would crash the economy before realizing most seven year olds don’t know how to run a national treasury.

 

Or when she’s nine and has a nightmare abut Mustafar, so she heads straight to the liquor cabinet on autopilot, determined to forget the worst day of her life. Her parents find her standing before it and she sleepily asks for the rum on the top shelf, explaining it looked remarkably similar to her favorite alcoholic drink on Coruscant.

 

Instead, they give her chocolate milk and remind her with pained smiles that it’s illegal for underage drinking.

 

For her part, she tries to keep her knowledge to herself. She doesn’t blurt out tidbits children don’t know, and even when mean old Tommy in fourth grade tells her she can’t play sports because she’s a girl, Padma refrains from using the self-defense Sabe taught her to pin him to the ground.

 

And in her free time, she researches everything to do with past lives. By the time she’s eight, she knows the five places where the most reincarnates are born, the likely amount of reincarnates in her own neighborhood, and statistically, where she’s likely to end up next life.

 

She also had memorized the percentage of total people who remember their past lives. Less than two percent.

 

Statistically, she’s likely to never meet another soul that remembers.

 

 

*

 

 

That’s not to say that her childhood is bad or lonelier than it would have been if she hadn’t remembered.

 

She still makes friends easily and likes to swing and swim, spends summers first playing with other kids on the block, later tanning at the local pool and skulking around the local diner with other teens. She has her first kiss with Eliza Parker and has sex senior year with Elijah Simmons. She enjoys eating pizza and debating best movies with her dad, manicures with her mom, baseball in the park and hockey in the rink with her brothers.

 

Simply put, Padma enjoys being a kid. God knows she never did that before.

 

 

*

 

 

It’s almost comically easy to get into college. For most high schoolers, their junior and senior years are filled with stress, testing, and tears. Padma finds it to be a breeze, but she supposes that after trying to keep an entire government system from falling apart with only her words while juggling a pregnancy, the roots of a rebellion, and a secret marriage, anything would seem easier in comparison.

 

She breezes through high school, graduating valedictorian, student council president, and the founder of PaChamas, a sleepwear-line that donates half of its proceeds to needy children in third-world countries.

 

She tries to pretend that the impoverished countries didn’t remind her of the slavery running rampant on the Outer Rim and of her own blistering guilt over not being able to fix it, of not trying to. Padma thinks of one particular world, sand swirling in the air and a little boy with blue eyes, and gags.

 

(One thing she will never think about is her two children. She had been a mother for a few glorious moments, ones that outshone every second of her existence, and then she wasn’t.

 

She will never know exactly what happened to them. She doesn’t think about this either.)

 

 

*

 

 

Padma turns twenty-one and can legally drink again. She goes out with her friends most nights, gets drunk on some nights. For a while, she enjoys the pure exhilaration of living, rejoicing in every moment she can choose to watch Netflix instead of working on an essay, can choose to do nothing over trying to fix something already broken.

 

She had majored in English, writing a paper on _Romeo and Juliet_ insightful and popular enough to land her a full letter of recommendation to Harvard.

 

The professor, a Mr. Willis, had raved, saying, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you lived it!”

 

Padma had smiled tersely and thanked him. That night Padme got absolutely wasted.

 

She’s known since before she could walk that she’d go to Harvard, become a lawyer, and enter into politics. She does. The news begins to cover her campaign, remarking on the young woman set to conquer the world with aplomb, a hijab, and a killer set of heels.

 

 

*

 

 

“Watch out- efhjdlAMSL;KM!”

 

The shriek and blur tearing its way down the street freezes Padma. She is twenty-six and staring into the eyes of death for the second time in a row. The lights blind her, and then suddenly, she is being shoved in the stomach, rolling her way into the asphalt as a riderless motorcycle slams its way into the traffic beside them.

 

She watches in shock as it somehow passes through the busy intersection and comes to a screeching collapse on the other side of the road next to her favorite hot dog stand. Miraculously, she’s alive and the fucking bike is unscathed.

 

Next to her lies a girl, all lanky limbs and a messy blonde fishtail. In some deep, petty part of her, she winces, thinking of half a dozen styles more suited for that hair. Most of her is still stumbling over the _she’s not dead_ part.

 

The girl rises unsteadily, clutching her head with one hand and pulling Padma up easily with the other. Whoever she is, this girl has got _guns_ , which is something the former warrior queen can respect.

 

(Whoever she is, she seems familiar.)

 

“Oh my god, are you alright? I am so sorry, I had no idea my piece of shit bike would end up losing its brakes once it hit a little ice, but I guess that’s what happens when ya get most of the pieces from the trash. Not that I live out of the garbage or anything, it’s just that bike parts are expensive and I have a sick brother to take care of and people throw away so much decent stuff,” she rambles, flapping her arms about. She’s taller than Padme by a foot, yet moves like a horse just learning to walk. Now Padma is sure she’s seen her before- something about her feels like home.

 

Feeling abnormally distracted, Padma manages to ask, “That _thing_ that almost hit me was your bike? And you were on it?”

 

The girl shrinks into herself, rubbing the back of her neck uncomfortably. “Yeah,” she mumbles. Before Padma can ask any of the questions burning in her mind, the girl rushes to add, “You’re okay, right? I thought I managed to jump off it and push you out of the way with me good enough, but it was all such a blur you could have totally gotten hurt and me not seen it-”

 

“I’m fine,” she interrupts, before the girl can give herself a heart attack. Padma’s still trying to process the fact that this girl dive bombed off a moving bike to save her life.

 

“You’re not mad?”

 

Padma laughs, smiling at this beautiful girl who she could already tell was her type. Reckless and good with building things and probably bad for her health. “You almost killed me, but then you saved my life. How about we call it even?”

 

And then the girl smiles, a bright beam, blue eyes crinkling in happiness. Padma’s breath catches because _she has seen these eyes before_. She is sure of it.

 

“How about I call you instead?” the girl asks.

 

She says yes because she can’t remember the last time she’s laughed like this.

 

 

*

 

 

They exchange numbers and head their separate ways. Padma saves the number in under the contact _Hot Girl_.

 

What? She can’t always be the perfect politician.

 

Only a few minutes later, her phone lights up with a new message.

 

 

*

 

 

 _Hot Girl_ : omg im so dumb i cant believe i forgot to get your name

 

 _Padma_ : my name is padma chama

 

 _Padma_ : and lol

 

 _Hot Girl_ : holy shit i almost hit new york’s next senator??? now i feel even worse

 

 _Padma_ : i haven’t even run for office yet

 

 _Hot Girl_ : yea but everyone knows youll be elected

 

 

*

 

 

Three hours pass until _Hot Girl_ \- whose name Padma is considering changing to _Giant Dweeb_. She’s spent a full page of text gushing about Batman for some reason but Padma has still wanted to read it. She wants to read everything this girl has to say- finally remembers that she still hasn’t given Padma her name.

 

 _Hot Girl_ : fuck i just realized you didn’t get my name

 

 _Hot Girl_ : im annie walker

 

Padma puts her phone down with shaking hands.

 

 

*

 

 

 _Oh_ , Padme thinks. That explains a lot.

 

 

*

 

 

She is torn between wanting to find Annie and kiss her senseless and wanting to run in the opposite direction and jump into the nearest ocean.

 

Suddenly, everything makes sense. Annie is _Ani_ , who else could she have been? The messy nest of blonde curls they called hair, the overeager responses, the mechanics, the jumping off a motorcycle going 50+ mph without a second thought. Ani had done the same trick with a speeder and the Coruscant traffic multiple times.

 

The way Padma was instantly drawn to her, the way everything makes a little more sense just being around her.

 

(Annie feels like home. Ani has always been her home.)

 

And yet, there’s still the awful memories of her last few days living the first time around. Anakin Skywalker had broken, and it had torn out her heart in the process. Anakin Skywalker had become someone monstrous- Obi Wan had whispered the name _Vader_ in disgust- and had choked her. She had still loved him.

 

It hits her like a truck or like the motorcycle that probably should have killed her. Suddenly, all the thoughts she did not let out were out. She didn’t know what happened to Anakin after she passed out, only that her entire soul ached and Obi Wan looked like he had just watched his brother die.

 

She didn’t know what happened to Luke or Leia. Padma lets out a choked sob, which is funny because she doesn’t remember starting to cry and now her whole face is wet. This is the first time she let herself think of their names.

 

She doesn’t know what happened to anyone she cared about, only that Palpatine took over her whole life and the whole galaxy and that she had tried her entire life to do the right thing and to help people and it hadn’t been enough. Anakin had been the best, the kindest, the most _everything_ man she had ever met and even he hadn’t made it out unscathed.

 

Padme- right now there is nothing of her that is Padma- wishes desperately, everything in her heart hurting, that she had more time. If she had had just a little more time, she could have hugged her children. She could have recorded a video for them on Artoo, telling them how much she loved them.

 

She feels sick. Luke and Leia will never know how much their mother loved- loves- them. She has no clue if they lived and died centuries ago, or if somewhere in another universe, they’re out there, her breathing little miracles.

 

If she had only had more time she could have saved Anakin. Padme knows in her heart that she could have saved him.

 

She loses track of time, sobbing in the dark until she can’t anymore.

 

 

*

 

 

 _Annie_ : are you okay??

 

 _Annie_ : you kinda just stopped texting

 

 _Annie_ : you didnt get hit by a bike w/out me around to save you right

 

 _Annie_ : hahaha im just kidding please don’t be lying in a ditch somewhere please

 

 _Annie_ :

 

 

*

 

 

It’s freezing when she wakes up. Padma doesn’t remember when she fell asleep, only remembers crying on a park bench in the middle of Central Park in the middle of January. It’s honestly remarkable she hasn’t been robbed.

 

And then she sees the reason why.

 

Annie is sitting there in the dark, barely lit by the flickering street light. She’s wrapped in about five blankets and clutching two mugs of hot chocolate, and Padma can see why once upon a time her future husband had asked if she was an angel because this girl looks like salvation.

 

Padma shifts, knocking off one of what can only be a blanket pile, as she reaches for a warm mug. Annie thrusts it at her, giving her an awkward wave and beginning to babble excitedly.

 

“Great, you’re up! I hope you’re not too creeped out ‘cuz I’m not a stalker or anything, you just suddenly stopped texting and I got this weird feeling that you were in trouble so I left my apartment to look for you. Which was stupid because NYC is huuge, but I kinda just stumbled onto you about two hours ago and didn’t want to move you so I ran back to my apartment and grabbed like thirty blankets which I have- I hate the cold, y’know? Oh!”

 

Her little speech cuts off as Padma kisses her. To all the stars above, she loves this woman already, has always loved her. She can feel Annie’s grin, as sharp and blinding as ever, against her lips and can’t help but smile too.

 

“You’re amazing,” Padma says.

 

Annie is gaping. “You are so gorgeous and I can’t believe you actually like me.”

 

That’s so cute that Padma just has to kiss her again. They kiss for a really long time.

 

 

*

 

 

Annie flops back against the bench after a while. The sky is beginning to lighten up, turning the frigid cold into a pale, gray place. “Ya’ owe me,” she slurs.

 

Padma leans into her shoulder, boneless and content in a way she hasn’t felt for a very long time. She knows that Annie doesn’t remember yet- no one is that good a liar, especially not Anakin- but they still fit together perfectly. Some things transcend death or whatever this is.

 

She isn’t over anything from being Padme Amidala, not yet and maybe not ever. Padma will have to go a long way to find any kind of closure; it will take a miracle to find out what exactly happened in their galaxy. But it’s a miracle she’s managed to find Anakin in one lifetime, let alone two, so she has hope.

 

There’s always going to be a lot of pain. She’s just now remembering that there’s dawn after the darkness.

 

“Really? How do you spin that?” she asks lazily.

 

“I’m out ‘ere kissin’ you in twenty degree weather even though I can’t stand being freezing like this.” Despite her complaining, Annie makes no move to leave, instead lifting her ridiculously long legs to curl up on the bench.

 

Padma lets her mind wander. She has to start preparing for her campaign to be a senator, still has to find a way to make Annie remember being Anakin, still has to get some answers. There’s a new emerging candidate for President, being backed by a wealthy businessman that reminds her far too much of Palpatine to be trusted.

 

There’s so much work to do but as long as she has Annie beside her, Padma will be fine.

 

“I can think of a few ways to warm you up,” she teases.

 

The sun illuminates them both as it slips up into the sky, golden and warm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is such a disaster and yet I chose to write this. at first, it was just supposed to be Anakin almost hitting Padme with a motorcycle but then it turned into this mess with too many #feelings to deal with. and really skewy reincarnation- I was so tempted to let her know the results of the Original Trilogy but I figured having multiple lives wouldn't work with an afterlife so you readers just get more pain! it turns out padme has a lot of problems. I'm thinking of writing a sequel where annie remembers her past life with some domestic anidala, angst, and taking down the creepy businessman who is definitely palpatine reincarnated, so let me know if you're interested!


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